Understanding Stages

Stages give you a clear picture of where every track stands in its lifecycle. Instead of guessing which songs are ready for mixing or which need more work, stages let you see everything at a glance and move tracks forward with a single click.

What Are Stages?

Stages represent the growth journey of a track from the moment you have an idea to the day it’s finished. Each stage acts like a milestone — a checkpoint that tells you and your collaborators exactly where a song is in its development.

Think of it like watching a plant grow. You start with a seed, watch it sprout, see it develop into a sapling, and eventually harvest a full-grown tree. Your tracks follow a similar path, and stages help you track that progress visually.

The default stages in Producer Dashboard are:

🌱 Seed — Your initial idea, barely more than a concept
🌿 Sprout — Starting to develop, the basics are taking shape
🪴 Sapling — actively in progress, building out the arrangement
🥦 Plant — Maturing nicely, getting closer to completion
🎄 Tree — Nearly there, just polishing remaining details
✨ Finished — Complete and ready for the world

Where You See Stages

Stages appear throughout the app wherever you view your tracks. In the track grid, each row displays the current stage as a coloured badge with its emoji and name. The stage column is also sortable, so you can quickly filter your view to see only tracks at a specific point in their journey.

When you select a single track, the Overview widget shows a circular progress ring indicating the stage. This visual makes it easy to spot where a track sits relative to completion without reading any text.

The Filter panel lets you include or exclude specific stages from your view. You might want to see only tracks that are past the “Seed” stage, or focus exclusively on tracks marked “Tree” that need final attention before finishing.

Changing a Track’s Stage

When you need to move a track forward (or back), click the stage badge on that track’s row. A modal opens showing all available stages as cards with their names, descriptions, and colour coding.

Click the stage you want to assign, and the badge updates immediately across the entire interface. The change syncs to the cloud in the background, so you can keep working without waiting.

This immediate visual feedback means you always know your changes have taken effect, even if you’re working offline or the network is slow. If the sync fails for any reason, the app reverts the change and lets you know.

Bulk Stage Updates

Need to move several tracks to the same stage at once? Select multiple tracks in the grid using Shift+click or Ctrl/Cmd+click, then use the bulk actions menu that appears. Choose a stage from the list, and all selected tracks update together.

The bulk update follows the same optimistic pattern as individual changes — you see the result instantly while the sync happens in the background. A toast notification confirms how many tracks were updated.

This is particularly useful at the start of a production sprint when you want to set a batch of tracks to “Sapling” to indicate they’re actively being worked on, or at the end when you’re ready to mark several songs as “Finished.”

Stages vs Workflows

Stages and workflows serve different purposes and complement each other:

Stages describe where a track is in its overall progress — from idea to finished product. Every track has exactly one stage at any given time.

Workflows describe specific tasks or goals a track is working toward — such as “Mixing,” “Mastering,” or “Artwork.” A track can have multiple workflows active simultaneously, and they can be combined in any way that fits your process.

When you filter your track view, you can use both stages and workflows together. For example, you might filter to show only tracks in the “Sapling” stage that have the “Mixing” workflow active.

Customising Your Stages

If the default growth metaphor doesn’t fit your workflow, you can create your own stages. Go to Settings and look for the Stages section where you can add, rename, or reorder stages to match how you actually work.

Custom stages can have their own colours, emojis, and descriptions. Perhaps you work in phases like “Demo,” “Review,” “Revision,” and “Approved” — whatever language makes sense for your team.

Your custom stages sync across all your devices and appear for anyone you collaborate with on shared projects.

Tips

Custom Workflows — Learn how to create and manage workflows for tracking specific tasks and goals
Tracking Progress — See how stages, workflows, and other tools give you a complete picture of your projects
Due Dates & Deadlines — Set deadlines for your tracks and see them alongside stages in the Overview widget